Hi there. I’m Tiff Firth, keen scrapper and very keen amateur photographer. I love the camera and I love children. The two go together to make the wonderful magic of freezing a moment of time forever. I have studied for my Diploma of Photography and have been seeing families for the last 2 years. I’ll go thru what’s in my camera bag at another time so I don’t bombarded you with too much info at the beginning ;o)
Lee-Anne’s asked me to post a regular camera tip for you in the forum. I don’t know everything, of that I freely admit, but I’ll help as much as I can. I’m a Canon girl and not very Nikon literate, but most of the basic information for learning the craft of photography is the same. I also use Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 5 (CS5) on a daily basis. Again, I am no expert in this area either.
I would love some feedback on what you want to know about your camera. Ie settings, lighting, metering, focus points, arpeture, shutter speeds, what the heck is ISO, and anything else you can think of. Just drop me a line in the thread and I’ll pop it on my list.
I’ll start off with an explanation of APERTURE.
It’s those funny number fractions that start with the letter f like f2.8, f8 or f22. On the dial of your DSLR camera its the AV setting. With point shoot cameras the flower is the macro setting (small focus) and the mountains is for landscapes (large area of focus)
I think of my eye, and the aperture is the size of my pupil that lets in the light. F2.8 is when the pupil is wide open and lets in lots of light. In the case with the camera it also means only a very small area of focus. F22 on the other hand is the exact opposite. The pupil is very small and only lets in a small area of light. This is also used to have the entire image in focus.
The easiest way for me to remember it is the small number is a small bit in focus, like the centre of a flower or an eye of a person, and the large number means everything is in focus, like a landscape.
To demonstrate this have a look at these pics of a sign using shells for the font. The first one is at f2.8 and only the first letter is in focus. The trees in the background are blurred so much to cause the circular effect called bokeh. (Google images to see other examples of bokeh)
Attachment:
File comment: f2.8
![_MG_5867 [tiff resolution].jpg](./download/file.php?id=10)
_MG_5867 [tiff resolution].jpg [ 80.99 KiB | Viewed 6954 times ]
_MG_5867 [tiff resolution].jpg [ 80.99 KiB | Viewed 6954 times ]
The second pic is at f8. Half of the sign is in focus. (up to the letter V). The bokeh effect is much less dramatic and the trees are more dominating in the background.
Attachment:
File comment: f8
![_MG_5872 [tiff resolution].jpg](./download/file.php?id=11)
_MG_5872 [tiff resolution].jpg [ 98.7 KiB | Viewed 6954 times ]
_MG_5872 [tiff resolution].jpg [ 98.7 KiB | Viewed 6954 times ]
This third image is at f22. All of the sign is in focus and the background is much more distinct.
Attachment:
File comment: f22
![_MG_5875 [tiff resolution].jpg](./download/file.php?id=12)
_MG_5875 [tiff resolution].jpg [ 110.3 KiB | Viewed 6954 times ]
_MG_5875 [tiff resolution].jpg [ 110.3 KiB | Viewed 6954 times ]
I hope that helps makes the very basics of aperture easier to understand. I’ll delve into more details of it in the not too distant future.
